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I met with a couple of mates today for lunch.  While we were chatting, the subject of one of their younger Brothers came up.  That morning, my mate had been to a sports event that his Brother had been competing in and his Brother had won all the events in his age group.  However unlike when I was a kid, all the entrants received a medal after the race had finished rather than just the top 3.  According to the organisers, there is no such thing as a loser anymore, it is called a deferred winner.

I have mixed feelings about this.  When I was younger, I had an obsessive desire to finnish first in any kind of sport.  Thankfully I am slightly calmer now. Part of me feels, if we wrap youngsters up in cotton wool and prevent them from seeing that sometimes their are losers, we will give them a false sense of reality.  However, it is never a nice feeling to fail at something, so I can kind of see the sense in making everyone "winners".

I had never heard of this until today. I was always under the impression that you either won or lost. It never dawned on me that everyone could be winners.  I do fear that Kids growing up will fail to develop a winners mentality though.

yep.

not having winners and losers in sport and lessons early doors  means that children are not being prepared for real life where there are very much winners and losers and disappointment.
By letting them know or realise themselves  that they may not be especially great at some particular task it might open up other avenues that give fulfilment and development...failing at one thing does not make you a failure full stop.

as i understand it the reason mr cowell is liked by some americans is that he calls it as it is. In a society that doesnt tell the truth or couches it in falsehoods it leads to bitter disappointment at a later stage when the child suddenly realises they cant be a pop idol , doctor, lawyer, shuttle pilot that everyone tells them thay can do...and possibly by that stage they have lost the opportunity to do something that is of value and can give them a sense of achievment in other directions.

life can be hard is a good lesson to learn early and bounce back from...how many people found out that they were crap at maths , arithemetic, english, football , rugby, art etc at school and this got them focussed on something they could do leading to a rich life(and i dont mean necessarily money).

we all contribute just in different ways...achievement in anything is to be applauded and excellence is great.
everybody is a winner and gets a medal is not the way to help kids grow up

How f***ing think do they think the kids are? They all know who won!!

It's the utter bull we dish out to the kids that means they don't trust adults when it comes to important things.

Sex before marriage/16 is bad - Aye right!!
Drugs are bad - Why do so many take them then?

Time to stop treating kids like they're stupid & use some flaming reason rather than lies and bull.....  ;tk;

I'm a loser through and through and i'm not letting any level of political corectness take that away from me!!

This is exactly what Micheal Johnson is talking about when he says Britain rewards mediocrity and that is why our sport suffers.

That and we need to start going on the b of the bang  :dontask:

I like Michael Johnson, a no nonsense pundit.

The ONLY one on the British commentary team.

Actually, Brendan Foster is useful for the distance stuff.

The rest are shocking.

you've got to give the children the nouse to reaize, that even thogh the school dishes out medals like confetti,the kids themselves know there are winners and there are 'winners'

Those kids that strive to do well will do the same in the real world.Those who are taken in by false praise and promises, will remain losers all there lives.
Like most things it will sort itself out, and those who interfer with our children's lives wil lone day need the positive gogetters, when they are supping their warm tea in their dotage.

 8)

Talking of Athletics.  Do you agree with Dwain Chambers inclusion in the British team?   My opinion is that he has served his ban and as a result any past crimes should be forgotten.  Ok, other team members have been training for the time he was banned and have been left out in favour of him. But he is faster and that's what counts at the end of the day .

I agree but it is not forgotten. He will be tested at every major meet for the rest of his career and rightly so IMO.

Yea absolutely, but I feel it is good he has been given a second chance.

This reminds me of something; in the last year of my primary school (1988), the powers that be decided to completely overhaul the summer Sports Day.

Instead of regular events, they put on a roster of different mini-trials, vaguely athletic in nature (which is to say that some involved running quickly, jumping over things, and what-have-you) but utterly non-competitive - each class divided into little teams with no winners and no losers. It was almost like the grown-ups were making us run around for their pleasure and amusement. Think "gerbils on a wheel in a cage".

Boy was I pissed off at being made to do that; the previous year I'd been second in the 100m and the 1500m, and I was determined to win something that year, only to have my chance of glory removed!

I train actors in stage fighting in a couple of colleges. In one I have an appraisal every other year. This appraisal is officially called 'mediation'. Personally, I'd like it to be called 'excellence' but I can't be seen to be getting ahead of myself. As long as i prove myself to be mediocre I keep my job.

A few of the schools we deal with are like this.  I think it's wrong.  You need to encourage kids to excel in things they are good at an encourage those that aren't do good to find other things that they are good at or enjoy more.

Just my opinion

bonkers

I have an idea, you don't want to patronize kids too much, and some don't want them to feel like losers.

Easy solution, have them all play Dempsey at poker.

Going in the log....

If it wasnt for the bitter taste of losing and being a loser we could never gain as much satisfaction and enjoyment from winning and being successful

The last Headmaster at my son's primary school, didn't believe in the children competing against themselves, and so refused to run the traditional type of sports day.  He instead insisted on running something called Clockwork sports - strangely enough the kids all competed against each other, but as a team event.   Parents used to complain that the children had to learn that sometimes you won and sometimes you lost, but he wouldn't have any of it, if he heard anyone complaining about it during Sports Day he used to have a go at them.  All this was fine with him and he was happy, until it came to the Inter Schools Sports - he wasn't so fussy about the competitive edge then was he? ? ?   Bloody hypocrit he was!!

He eventually bogged off elsewhere and good riddance! 

Last year for the first time since leaving school myself, I actually got to watch one of my boys in a traditional sports day, just like I used to compete in at that exact same school.  It brought back some lovely memories.

Just been on the phone to Victor Chandler to ask when i can expect to recieve my "deffered winnings". for some reason they just laughed at me????

I don't know how i can face life anymore i'm crushed!!

Kids should be taught right from wrong and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. If the pain of losing makes the desire to win stronger then so be it. Can you imagine the aussies letting their kids be "deffered winners"? This sort of mentality is why we are breeding a nation of losers at sporting events. My son is now 7 and hates to lose at anything he ever does, if he plays football on the playstation the sheer frustration is there to see if he is losing. Should this desire be quelled? My ex believes he should be taught losing is OK and he shouldn't get so frustrated- my oppinion is that that is bollox and I want him to succeed, losing is not an option in whatever he does- if he does lose it should make him try harder in future.

I wonder if this was the same head from my school?  rotflmfao

I wondered the same when I read your post, which was AFTER I posted mine - I can't remember the old gits name.  I'll ask my eldest, (one phonecall later)  Mr Derek Thompson.

this is something I have mixed feelings on so decided to give some thought to before posting. On Thursday it was my 6 year old daughter, Charlotte's sports day so I decided to ask her about it in some depth. bare in mind her birthday is in June so she's one of the smallest and youngest in her class. two of her best friends are considerably bigger than her. She said she really wasn't looking forward to it at all. her face was very serious and concerned. They'd been practicing for a couple of weeks and she was still unsure whether to stand in the hoop and pull it up over herself or stand outside the hoop and pull it down over herself, whether the bean bag went on her head first or between her knees first, etc. I asked her about how she felt before a race started and she described a sickness in her stomach and a racing heart. massive nerves and adrenalin dump. a horrible thing to put a 6 year old kid through. She was nearly in tears just visualising it as she described it.

Now although I'm 'fighting fit', I'm not a particularly athletically minded person. I'd rather my kids be able to express themselves artistically and musically. I'll train them both in Martial arts but with a focus on self protection rather than sport. any sporting activity will be up to them really.

I think by having winners and losers in a race with kids this young is damaging. The physical difference between kids in the same year is considerable and you run the risk of carving out life's winners and losers on unfair grounds. if a younger child like Charlotte comes last in her race at age 5, 6, 7 and 8 because she is smaller and less physically developed than her classmates you instill in her an acceptance of losing in life. her friend who is nearly a year older gets the feeling of winning in life as she romps home 1st year after year. What happens if Charlotte under achieves her whole life because she has developed a personality that expects to fail, despite having the actual innate ability to succeed in anything. No one is saying that 11-16 kids should be schooled in this way. we're talking about infants. Charlotte was terrified by two things.
The thought of finishing last
The complexity of the race they were running.
I would rather them have the kids simply run, jump or throw something than put on these ridiculously hard obstacle courses.

Competition in life is unavoidable and without it society stagnates. However, creating life's winners and losers based on their athletic ability at age 5 or 6 is absurd. there is plenty of time for introducing the concept of competitive sport later on. I want my children to develop the ability to motivate themselvess. to set themselve realistic but challenging goals and to be able to objectively rate their own performance. I want free thinking individuals who push themselves to achieve rather than be pushed by outside forces. I think that's damaged by encouraging them to judge themselves comparatively at such an early stage.

Good post Adam.   It is a toughie.  Like you, I have mixed feelings as well

I don't know how it is at some schools, but at my Primary school, not everyone raced in the Sports Day.

Simply, the kids who didn't want to race, didn't have to... but inevitably some kids from each class ended up participating.

I loved sports day at School.  100, 200 and 400 metres were my favorites.   Good memories for me, but I can see that it isn't for everyone.  That is why being able to chose may be a good thing .

I don't mind kids deciding whether or not they want to participate, but the Headteacher deciding to scrap Sports Day altogether in favour of something resembling "It's A Knockout" is not the answer, IMO.